


she promised all the sweetest gifts (and i'll always remember this moment)

by troiing



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017)
Genre: Comfort, Cuddling & Snuggling, Estrangement, Eventual Happy Ending, F/F, Gift Giving, Implied Emotional Neglect, Nightmares, Stargazing, Teen Angst, Useless Lesbians, Young Love, basically young Pippa is the biggest cuddlemonster and Hecate just goes along with it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-02-19 09:29:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13120914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/troiing/pseuds/troiing
Summary: “They’re for you,” Pippa says, pushing the tin of biscuits back towards Hecate. “Unless you want something else? Mum and Dad sent loads.” She sifts through the parcels. “There’s chocolate, and—”“But it’s yours,” Hecate cuts her off. “For your birthday.” There’s a question in her voice as she struggles to understand: she can’t quite grasp the elaborate affair that Pippa's birthday has become. But more than that, she can’t understand why Pippa would want to share with her.Pippa glances up again, grinning as she pops a thin, wafer-like biscuit into her mouth. “So? We’re friends, aren’t we? Friends share.”Or (an only slightly out of order) 5 times they gave each other birthday gifts, and one time they didn't, interspersed with other stuff I couldn't resist including because in the end I have no self control.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Many many thanks to Matildaswan for her betaing and support, and to Nova (janetfraiser on tumblr) for graciously allowing me to scream my emotions at her while only occasionally (ok, with relative frequency) asking "Arwen, why are you like this?" & for occasionally shouting her own emotions back. =P

Near the end of their first year in school, Pippa spends three weeks giddy and gushing about her upcoming birthday, and Hecate simply cannot understand why. It’s easy enough to ignore the nerves and excitement when the other girls go on about their own self-interested celebrations: she has little interest in anything they say at the best of times. But she cares about Pippa—has come to care for her a great deal, in fact—and simply cannot understand why a date would mean so much to anyone. Pippa sometimes has her head in the clouds, but it doesn't seem like her to put so much emphasis on something that seems so trivial.

But then the actual day arrives, and an enormous package arrives for her bubbly friend. For the first time, Hecate realises that people actually _celebrate_ birthdays.

To her, it is simply the anniversary of the day you were born; Hecate does not see much to celebrate about that.

“But what did you do?” Hecate asks, gazing in bewilderment at Pippa as they sit on Hecate’s bed, Pippa unloading trinkets and snacks and an incredibly plush stuffed zebra from the box. (She has already emptied it once, to the tune of gasps and jealous outcries from a gaggle of other girls, but Hecate had avoided the interaction—gets a private viewing now, much to her confusion.)

“I was born, silly,” Pippa answers laughingly, suddenly holding a small tin out for Hecate to take.

“No, I mean what did you _do_ for all _this_?” She flicks her fingers towards the pile of presents now spread over the bed. There are an awful lot of things. “I don’t think being born counts as an achievement.”

Pippa nudges the parcel towards Hecate again. She takes it uncertainly, pulling the tail of its raffia bow. 

“It’s not about doing something, silly,” Pippa replies just as Hecate pulls off the lid to reveal a pile of perfect strawberry jam-filled biscuits. “It’s just your birthday!”

But Hecate has received exactly thirteen birthday gifts in her life—one each year—and none of them have been sweets or cards or useless toys. Each gift has been practical. Sensible. Useful. A mark of progress, a helpmate for times to come. This year had been a spell book, a companion for the text they would use in class. Hecate has never minded this, never known anything different.

The room goes quiet as Hecate stares at the sweets, frowning. Only the rustle of paper breaks the silence. Hecate glances up at Pippa to find her face has fallen, the bubbling brightness of before replaced with a look of sudden consternation. 

“Don’t you celebrate birthdays at your house?” Pippa asks hesitantly, eyeing Hecate with something close to pity. It sit uncomfortably on Hecate’s shoulders and she shrugs it off, holding the biscuits out towards Pippa again.

“No, they’re for you,” Pippa says vehemently, pushing it back towards Hecate, suddenly smiling again,. It seems a little duller than before. “Unless you want something else? Mum and Dad sent loads.” She sifts through the parcels. “There’s chocolate, and—”

“But it’s yours,” Hecate cuts her off. “For your birthday.” There’s a question in her voice as she struggles to understand: she can’t quite grasp the elaborate affair that Pippa's birthday had become. More than that, she can’t understand why Pippa would want to share with her.

Pippa glances up again, grinning as she pops a thin, wafer-like biscuit into her mouth. A bit of crumb and a fat sugar crystal catch on the corner of her mouth. 

“So?” she says around the crunching mouthful. Hecate winces a little and Pippa swallows quietly. Her grin broadens. “We’re friends, aren’t we? Friends share.”

* * *

On her next birthday, a few of the other second years shower Pippa with small gifts: notebooks and pens and useless trinkets. 

Pippa accepts them all joyfully, performs the same exhibition of the haul her parents have sent her, and again splays herself across Hecate’s bed in the evening to pick through the parcels.

It’s customary, now, for Pippa to share gifts with Hecate; her parents send her to school with an almost obscene number of snacks and other superfluous but pleasing supplies every term, and she receives a number of smaller, similar parcels throughout the year. 

On those evenings she makes herself at home in Hecate’s room, thrusting food into her hands and bidding her eat before they continue their revisions. She begins to bring less sugary offerings, noting Hecate’s distaste for foods that are overly sweet. 

At thirteen, she has a keen eye for her friend’s needs, even if Hecate might not consider them as such.

But tonight, Hecate can’t quite concentrate on the gifts in front of her. Instead, she finds herself gazing guilty at a gaudily colourful bracelet hanging from Pippa’s wrist.

“Hiccup?” Pippa asks, and Hecate realises that it’s not the first time Pippa has said her name.

“Um.”

“Are you okay?”

Pippa has an open bag in her hand, outstretched towards Hecate. She sniffs, inhaling the pungent aroma of gingersnaps, and blinks up at Pippa with an uncertain smile.

“I thought, um.” She stops, takes a biscuit from the pile and nibbles carefully, free hand cupped beneath her chin to catch the crumbs. “The other girls gave you presents today.”

“Some of them,” Pippa replies, in a tone that asks for clarification.

Hecate gazes with great interest down at a bit of bright pink paper still stuck to the box. “I thought,” she repeats, almost in a whisper. “I thought maybe only families celebrated them.” It spills out in a rush before she swallows. “B—birthdays, I mean.”

“Oh! No, silly!” Pippa replies without thinking. “Anybody can give someone something on their birthday! I gave you lemon biscuits this year, remember?”

Hecate does remember lemon biscuits, early in the winter term: Pippa had wished her a happy birthday, and pushed a larger-than-usual pack of yellow-tinged biscuits into her hands. But Hecate had not seen the correlation between the two events, had assumed that this was the typical gift of afters, that maybe Pippa really just didn’t like lemon biscuits.

Now she blushes furiously, folding the paper haphazardly around the packet of gingersnaps and cradling them in her hands. A tear springs, unbidden, to her eye.

“I didn’t get you anything,” she admits in a near-whisper, thrusting the biscuits back towards Pippa again. She gulps audibly. “You should keep these.” A split second later, her face flushes even redder. “Sorry, I, I—I bit one. Sorry.”

Pippa blinks at her, staring. “It’s okay, Hiccup,” she says quietly, taking the biscuits from Hecate’s hands and placing them carefully on the bed. “I want to share. And you don’t have to get me anything, really.”

“Well you shouldn’t be giving me a present instead.”

“I want to. Besides, I don’t even like gingersnaps. Mum made them for you.”

 _Mum made them for you,_ Pippa says, easy as anything, and it’s too much for Hecate. She sobs suddenly, the tears escaping, slipping down her cheeks.

Pippa launches herself off the foot of Hecate’s bed, circling around to very nearly tackle her with a hug. Hecate stiffens, freezes, but Pippa clings to her until she feels her soften, feels Hecate's arms loop uncertainly around Pippa's waist.

Eventually Hecate swallows back the tears, sniffling against Pippa's shoulder. “Are we still friends?” she asks softly, hopefully, voice cracking.

Pippa hugs her tighter. “Of course we are; don't be silly. Pipsqueak and Hiccup. Best friends, forever.”

After curfew, Pippa sneaks down the hall, into Hecate’s room; curls under Hecate’s blankets with their foreheads pressed together and repeats that sleepy mantra to the rhythm of Hecate’s quiet, shallow breaths: _Best friends, forever._ Hecate sighs, and Pippa can just see the shy curl of her lips in the darkness.

* * *

Forever is an awfully long time, Hecate decides. She likes the way it sounds on Pippa's lips.

The month between winter and summer term is typically spent studying, preparing for the next, but Hecate spends the month of August before their third year with busy hands, practicing a craft that isn’t _The_ Craft for the first time in her life. She finds it nice, actually, enjoys the change of pace, the fact that she can recite potions ingredients and practice incantations while her hands are busy with something else. She thinks it might even help.

For her birthday, Pippa gives her a book: small but lovely, with the most exquisite illustrations of rare herbs. And the expected tin of biscuits, of course.

“I wanted to give you something useful,” Pippa explains with a blush, hands clasped in front of her. “I know how you like useful things.” She is full of light-hearted uncertainty, watches as Hecate turns the pages slowly, transfixed. “Do you like it?”

A tear sparks in Hecate’s eye, and she brushes it fitfully away. “I love it, Pipsqueak. Thank you.”

Hecate is fifteen now, almost a full year older than some of her classmates—Pippa included—and half a head taller than the tallest in her year; Pippa hasn’t quite managed a good, solid growth spurt yet, has to stand on her toes and crane her neck to place a happy kiss against Hecate’s warm cheek.

“Do, um. Would you want something useful?” Hecate suddenly asks, filled with trepidation.

Pippa pauses for a moment, then her eyes light up. “Are you getting me a present, Hiccup?”

“I…”

Pippa laughs suddenly, happily, and wraps her arms around Hecate’s waist, tucking her face beneath Hecate’s chin and squeezing. Hecate holds the book off to the side for a moment, then tentatively folds her arms around Pippa’s shoulders.

“I like everything, Hiccup,” Pippa says, terribly unhelpfully. “But I like you best.”

Hecate’s heart thunders against Pippa’s cheek.

* * *

Hecate spends most of the school year practicing, fretting, debating, and preparing; she knows what she wants to give Pippa, but a year is an awfully long time to second and third and fourth-guess herself. When Pippa finally bursts into Hecate’s room on the evening of her own birthday, laden with her box of gifts from home, Hecate already has the small gift box resting at the foot of the bed.

Pippa stops short just at the side of the bed, rests her much larger parcel on it, and glances from the foot of the bed up towards the head, where Hecate sits cross-legged, back ramrod straight but with her face lowered, watching shyly, furtively, through her dark lashes.

“Hiccup, is that for me?” Pippa asks, an edge of barely-tamped down delight in her voice.

Hecate nods, and Pippa suddenly flings herself into the bed, wraps her arms around Hecate’s shoulders, and kisses her cheek. “Thank you!”

“I… You don’t even know what it is,” Hecate stammers, blushing furiously. What if her gift doesn’t live up to Pippa’s expectations? What if she hates it?

Perhaps even worse, what if it inspires nothing at all? She fears apathy much more than disdain, after all: disdain, she receives in full measure from most of her peers, has received it since the beginning of their first year and cultivated it ever since. Disdain, she can return in full measure. She doesn’t know what to do with apathy.

But Pippa withdraws, reaches down the bed as if to snatch up the gift; before she does, she hesitates, pauses, picks up the box carefully by its corners. It is covered in a beautiful display of pressed flowers: delicate primrose, bright bluebells, the unmistakable shape of an aster blossom, all surrounded by painstakingly-arranged heliotrope blossoms. When she realises that the flowers are magically sealed to the brown paper beneath them, she turns it over a little less cautiously in her hands, examining the display.

“I love it already,” Pippa says, awed; it does not occur to her to feel anything else. “Did you make this?”

Hecate blushes as Pippa settles down next to her again, their knees brushing. “The paper?” When Pippa nods affirmation, Hecate nods back. “Yes.”

“It’s beautiful.” Pippa traces the fluted blossom of a bluebell before grinning up at Hecate, chewing on her lower lip. Then, turning the package over, she carefully peals the paper away, keeping it intact when she reveals the plain brown box. Her reservations end there: she whips the lid off of the box, pulls out the tissue within, and a bundle of pink and black and red falls into her lap. “Oh,” she says quietly, picking it up, examining the twisted braids, rolling the perfect cylinder of woven thread between her fingertips. Bands of pink and black, interspersed with what seems to be a single link of red binding the two colours together. “You made me a friendship bracelet!”

Even the excitement in Pippa’s voice doesn’t quell Hecate’s anxiety; she rubs sweaty palms across her knees. “Do—do you like it?”

Pippa glances up at her, smiles more broadly than Hecate has ever seen, brighter than the sun. “I love it! How did you—I didn’t know you could make them this way. I didn’t know _you_ could make them at all. You have to teach me!”

Hecate blushes, feels bats unfurling their wings in her belly. Feels happy, _ecstatic_ even, knowing that she’s done well. “I… well, it’s not… It’s not hard, really. Just a little time-consuming. And figuring out the patterns is tricky but once you know…” Pippa turns the bracelet over in her hands, looking at it rather than Hecate, so she trails off and instead points at the closure on the bracelet. “I made it so you can take it on and off if you want to. You just slip that loop—”

Pippa giggles. “You’re supposed to wear it until it falls off, Hiccup. You tie it on me and I make a wish and when it falls off, my wish comes true.”

The redness rises again to Hecate’s cheeks as she shrugs her shoulders noncommittally. “I know, but...I thought—I thought you might not want to wear it all the time,” she finishes in a near whisper.

A span of silence passes between them as Pippa nibbles her lip, closing her fingers around the bracelet for a moment before glancing up at Hecate. “That’s okay. I want to wear it all the time, but I don’t want it to fall off either,” Pippa says after a moment of thought, opening her palm again and holding it out to Hecate. She is more excited again, less thoughtful, when she says: “Go on then, put it on me!”

Hecate takes the bracelet nervously from Pippa’s hand, loosens it enough to slip it over Pippa’s knuckles, and pulls it tight again. Pippa turns her wrist over, shakes it, feels the just-snug-enough fit against her skin. Leans forward to hug her friend again. “You’re the bats. I’m keeping it always. You can make me another one to wish on.”

* * *

It takes a great deal of supplication, but somehow, Hecate manages to escape the confines of the Hardbroom estate for the week before their fourth year, spending it instead with Pippa. The cited reason for the trip in Hecate’s household: Hecate and Pippa happen to be the two cleverest witches in their year, and happen to work very well together and would benefit from a week of studying together before term. Unofficially, it is an extended celebration of Hecate’s birthday, although it isn’t for a few weeks yet and despite that Hecate sees no discernable need for such revelry.

Hecate is a little out of place in the bright modernity of the Pentangle estate, in the raucous laughter that often rings through it. The grounds are filled with gardens, the interior with bold fabrics and rich wood. With Pippa’s two siblings; with her parents.

Her sister is thirteen, as tall as Pippa, and speaks in almost perpetual sing-song; her brother, eighteen, is quiet until he isn’t, and when he isn’t it’s usually to laugh very loudly at a joke made by his father or to make one himself—typically a light-hearted jibe at someone else’s expense, but never hurtful, never in bad taste.

Pippa’s father is an anomaly to Hecate, something she voices that first night in Pippa’s bedroom, shoulder to shoulder in Pippa’s bed. It is witches who form covens, who think of each other as sisters in magic if not in blood, who reach out to each other as if magic is the only bond they need; she has never met a wizard so _present_ , laughing and warm and boisterous, constantly mussing hair and juggling cleaning spells as if everything in life is a game. Pippa’s mother is more subdued, but laughs easily and carries an impossible warmth with her, corrects her husband with little more than a look or a word or two when she sees Hecate’s discomfort on a few occasions throughout her stay.

Hecate hates being so transparent in the face of people she wants so badly to please, and although Pippa makes a habit of pushing Hecate’s boundaries a bit herself, she can tell. She delights in the presence of her friend anyway, has no qualms with keeping Hecate all to herself for most of the duration of her stay despite that time with her family is a precious thing as well.

She’s going to be away at school for five months; one more week will hardly hurt. It barely occurs to her that she gets to see Hecate every day for those five months, but has only one with her family.

Most of the week is blessedly clear, and they while the hours away in the gardens with school books in front of them or selecting ingredients for practice potions or on their backs, Pippa chatting animatedly and Hecate listening. Hecate shows Pippa how to string thread around a loom, how to weave bracelets like the one she made for Pippa. They share Pippa’s room, Pippa’s bed; every night, Pippa’s mother comes in to kiss Pippa and wish Hecate good night, and every night they lie under the covers whispering even though it’s the break and there is no curfew. They harbour no discomfort when it comes to sharing space, to changing together, anything of the sort; witches simply _don’t_ , and although Hecate has not had many occasions to bare skin in front of other witches, it doesn’t occur to her to be leery of it.

Tuesday morning, Pippa bounces wildly on the bed clad in pyjama bottoms and a bra, the fabric of a pink jumper jerking through the air as she waves her arms.

“If you lived with me,” she chants in time with her bounces. “I’d feed _you_ ”—she bends her knees to stop her bounce, flings her jumper at Hecate (it clings momentarily to her bare shoulder before falling to the floor)—“jam doughnuts! Every day!”

Hecate blinks up at her, pauses in her own dressing to bend down and retrieve Pippa’s jumper. “I don’t like sweets, Pipsqueak,” she points out, manages to resist adding _‘You know that’_.

“A little at a time until you did like them,” Pippa replies as if it’s merely a continuation of her hypothetical situation. She starts bouncing again, catches the jumper when Hecate tosses it up to her.

“Why?”

Pippa performs a full spin and nearly tumbles forward off the bed, erupts into laughter as Hecate steps forward as if to catch her. “ _Because_ , you need more sugar in your diet,” she sings, leaping off the bed and wrapping Hecate up in a surprise embrace. “You haven’t got enough squishy bits!” She laughs delightedly into Hecate’s shoulder, pressing in so close it takes Hecate a moment to breathe.

It’s true: a culmination of many things—the pattern of her growth spurts, her metabolism, her eating habits—have left Hecate willow-thin with knobby elbows and prominent ribs and hips, almost sixteen and still gangly as a newborn foal, but the way Pippa clings suggests she doesn’t mind any of this at all.

“Do, um. Do I need squishy bits?” Hecate manages, opening and closing her fingers, unsure of what to do with her hands.

Pippa makes a thoughtful sound, nuzzles underneath Hecate’s chin and pulls Hecate’s body into a rocking motion, as if they’re dancing, but only for a moment. “No, of course you don’t _need_ them,’ She holds her a touch tighter. “But they are fun to hug.”

* * *

The last night before term is blissfully clear; they lie ear-to-ear in the grass, Hecate’s feet pointing due north and Pippa’s due south, and take turns naming constellations above them: Pisces, Cygnus, Lyra; they have a small tiff over whether a few dim stars are Vulpecula or not. Hecate wins when she points out that, although their view of the constellation is rather obscured by its reflected light, the Moon rests comfortably within Capricornus and that, furthermore, that’s Jupiter with its golden glow, just north of the Moon and west of the star Dabih. Pippa concedes the argument without proof, laughs delightedly at Hecate’s passion, and folds her arm up to stroke her fingers through Hecate’s soft hair.

Lying there in the semi-darkness as a long span of silence stretches between them, Pippa feels the the largeness of the universe and the smallness of herself, truly feels it, for the first time. She doesn’t know what to do with this feeling; stretches her arms into the air in an attempt to shake it off, finds herself pointing at Pegasus above them.

“The red one is Scheat,” she says, studying the great square of Pegasus’ body. “And Sirrah in Andromeda. What are the other two?”

“In the great square?” Hecate asks, angling her chin for a better look at the more southern stars. “Algenib and Markab.”

Pippa hums delight, drops a hand into Hecate’s hair again. “The others. In Pegasus,” she quizzes.

“The nose, Enif,” Hecate says quietly, but without hesitation, tracing the constellation with her eyes. “Biham. Homam. Sadalbari, Matar, Jih.”

“Equuleus.”

“Kitalpha and Pherasauval,” she replies, ticking off the named stars with ease, letting them roll sweetly off her tongue; she likes the way they taste in her mouth.

Pippa breathes slowly, deeply, and the feeling of smallness returns. “You know them so well.” She wishes she did too; maybe if she knew them the way Hecate does their largeness might not seem so terrifying.

“I like the stars.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. They’re fascinating,” Hecate begins haltingly. “So... grand and big and powerful but so far away. I can’t touch them, just look. It makes me want to know them as well as I can.”

“How well do you think you know them?”

A moment of silence passes, and then Hecate shrugs, her right shoulder nudging the crown of Pippa’s head. Pippa hums acknowledgement of the sentiment, turns her head, presses a kiss to Hecate’s temple. Hecate pulls away just a little, but they still find themselves bumping noses when she turns to face Pippa. Pippa grins, giggles, nudges Hecate’s nose with her own again before lighting a kiss on her forehead.

“Let’s go in,” she says softly. “It’s getting cool, and it’s probably late anyway.”

Yet while the breeze may be chilled, Pippa is not; she is giddy and warm in Hecate’s nearness, wants an excuse to curl into it, knows that Hecate will allow it in the bed they have been sharing for the week, but not here, not in the open under the stars where there is so much _room_ and little excuse for such close proximity.

Pippa holds Hecate’s hand all the way up to her room, curls up under the blankets close to Hecate’s body. She falls asleep before her mother comes in to bid them goodnight.

She wakes with a gasp, short of breath with the lingering feeling of a weight around her throat and on her chest. The darkness of the room doesn’t help: all she can see is a long, dark void, and the air in her lungs feels empty, all of her heavy but hollow. She whimpers, feels hot tears prick at her eyes. Covers her mouth to keep the noise in, but a whine scrapes its way out of her throat anyway.

“Pipsqueak?” Hecate’s voice is muffled, a low, rough mumble from the pillow beside her. It startles her, but Pippa clings to Hecate’s voice, using it and her friend’s presence as an anchor, trying to push down the staggering dread, to see past the looming darkness. 

“Turn on the light,” she begs, unable to keep the desperation from her voice.

A snap of Hecate’s fingers makes Pippa blink, but the long dark is banished by lamplight, and she immediately feels the weight lift out of her, is left with tingling fingers and toes. She closes her eyes, balls her fists, breathes in and out, feels the bed shift as Hecate moves.

“Nightmares again?” Hecate asks, not expecting an answer. The pads of her fingertips light on Pippa’s arm, brush carefully upward.

Pippa shivers, and Hecate reaches out to adjust the blanket, to ensure that it is snug around Pippa’s body again.

“Can you hold me?” Pippa’s voice is more plaintive in her own ears than she wants it to be, but there’s no helping that.

Hecate’s voice is clearer when she draws her hand away, shifting her shoulders to make room. “Of course.”

Pippa curls into Hecate’s body, buries her face beneath Hecate’s chin, inhales deeply against her skin as Hecate’s arms wrap awkwardly around her. Hecate is always uncertain with hugs, with any signs of affection, but it doesn’t matter; what does matter is being close to her, drawn in to her. Hecate is the gravity that keeps Pippa’s feet on the ground, all level practicality—and although sometimes Pippa wants little more than to fly, Hecate is a steadying force, and she makes Pippa feel safe.

Nightmares have always occasioned Pippa's dreams, leaving her afraid to of the dark for weeks on end—an endless frustration to their form mistress, who has grown accustomed to finding Pippa's lights on after curfew with some regularity when her night light simply isn't enough. She’s been sneaking into Hecate’s room for three years now—only sometimes, only when she felt particularly alone or afraid—and she knows without a doubt that she wants Hecate to be her hiding place, now and always. Pointy elbows and shy hugs and all.

She breathes again, steadier now. Hecate twists a lock of golden waves between her finger and thumb.

“D’you ever just feel really, really small?” Pippa asks in a near-whisper, knowing her voice is muffled against Hecate’s skin.

“Hm?”

Pippa sighs, withdraws a little. “The stars, the sky. Do they ever make you feel… tiny?” A span of silence passes, and she swallows, tilting her chin up to see if Hecate is even awake. “Hiccup?”

Hecate’s mouth twists a little. “Yes.”

Pippa sighs again, feeling something like relief. Lowers her cheek to Hecate’s chest and feels her heart through her ribs. It’s fast, always fast, but Pippa doesn’t mind. “Doesn’t that scare you?”

“No,” Hecate says softly. And then, without judgment, but questioning nevertheless: “Did you have a nightmare about stars?”

“No,” Pippa says immediately, clenching her fingers in the fabric of Hecate’s nightclothes. “Yes. Kind of?”

“That’s not really an answer,” Hecate points out, and Pippa manages to laugh a little at her perpetual judiciousness.

“About… the sky,” Pippa says, unsure herself. “About being tiny and helpless and everything else being so… big.” She can't think of a better way to describe it, knows the words fall short of the terror she feels. Yet in a rare display of unchecked understanding and affection, Hecate wraps her arms tighter around Pippa and sighs into her hair.

“You’re getting bigger, you know. Not so tiny anymore,” Hecate says with a quiet, familiar lilt in her voice. She doesn’t joke often, but Pippa loves when she does, giggles softly now in reply.

“You’re right,” she murmurs, feeling a bit better already. “I come up to your nose now.” Pippa secretly thinks this is an excellent height, because Hecate is as tall as her father is now, and it is the perfect height for forehead kisses, which she loves. She loves the way kisses feel, when given and received. Loves walking up to her father in the mornings and receiving an easy peck on her forehead, a light ruffling of her hair, a cheery _morning, love_. Her family has always shared kisses and hugs and signs of affection; Hecate no longer shies away when Pippa kisses her on the cheek or holds her hand, but she has never kissed Pippa back. Pippa hopes, again in secret, that Hecate will one day feel comfortable in kissing back.

They’re quiet for a span before Hecate speaks again. “I don’t mind the bigness,” she muses, more seriously. She pauses, collects her thoughts, and Pippa feels her thoughtful hum against her cheek. “And besides, everything out there has a place, doesn't it? Planets around stars and stars in galaxies… And travelers have always used the stars to navigate—witches and wizards, and non-magical people too. So everything out there just sort of _happened_ , didn’t it? It got… flung into being, but it belongs right where it is.”

She is a little sad, suddenly, a little distant; Pippa holds onto her tightly, tries to imagine herself as an ancient desert nomad or a sailor on the ocean navigating by starlight, relying on the sky for her survival. Hecate is there too, of course she is; Pippa can’t imagine any lifetime without her. She is the one naming stars when the night isn't clear, when only the brightest ones shine to be seen, the one keeping them steady on their course through storm and fog and all the whims of nature.

“What if Polaris wasn't there?” Hecate continues. “Logic says if it wasn't we would find some other point of reference, but what if? And anyway, if every star has a place and a purpose, then every _body_ must have a place too.” Her voice is tremulous now; Pippa shifts in her arms, glances up at her, and Hecate blinks her eyes shut, breathes unsteadily.

Pippa scoots upwards against the pillows, works one arm more securely around Hecate’s body so that they are embracing each other. “I know where my place is,” she whispers, as if it’s the greatest secret she knows.

“Where?”

There’s trepidation in Hecate’s voice; Pippa soothes it away with a kiss, lips lingering longer than usual against Hecate’s cheek. Her breath is warm against Hecate’s cool skin. Hecate sighs at the caress, fingers clenching against Pippa’s shoulder.

“Guess.”

Hecate’s eyes are shining when she turns to face Pippa, lips pulled into a tight line, the corners angled downward. Pippa smiles, offers up the tiniest breath of a laugh for her uncertainty. Tilts her forehead and nose against Hecate’s and closes her eyes.

“With you, of course. I love you, Hiccup. You’re my best friend.”

* * *

Hecate’s actual birthday passes without fanfare, and Hecate doesn’t even expect a proper gift; she’d spent an entire week with Pippa, after all, and opportunities for socialisation with other children and teenagers haven’t exactly been common throughout her childhood. To spend time not only with a peer, but with someone so dear to her? That is more than present enough.

Pippa has been wrangled into a study session with a younger student and a number of other events during the day, lets herself get roped into eating lunch and dinner with some of the other girls when Hecate arrives late to both meals and is too polite to leave them even though she wants to. She doesn’t actually speak to Hecate at all during the day, sneaks down the hall and into Hecate’s room after curfew for the first time this year.

“Happy birthday, Hiccup,” Pippa whispers, closing the door softly behind her before tiptoeing across the floor to settle on the edge of the bed, flicking the lamp on with a wave of her fingers. “Sorry we didn’t get to spend it together.”

“That’s okay,” Hecate says quietly, sleepily, pushing herself upright and rubbing sleep from her eyes. Only when she brings her hand down does she realise Pippa is holding out two parcels. “You got me presents?”

Pippa blinks, then giggles. “Of course I did.”

“But…” Hecate doesn’t know how to voice her gratitude for the time she was able to spend with Pippa over the break, so she trails off, glancing from one package to another and then up to Pippa again.

“Today’s your birthday, silly witch,” Pippa replies, leaning forward to press an unabashed kiss to Hecate’s cheek.

Hecate lets that be the last of it; takes the first package, opens it to reveal the expected tin of biscuits. This year they are chocolate, deep and dark, and Hecate knows they will be delightfully bittersweet on her tongue without tasting one. She nibbles her lip, smiles shyly, and sets the tin carefully aside as Pippa shoves the second package towards her.

Pippa is uncharacteristically quiet while Hecate slips the bow and paper off the gift, finding a book inside, like last year. Opening it carefully, flipping through a few of the pages, reveals illustrations of flowers. Delicate calligraphic print announces the names of the blooms, but there is no other information.

“It’s… less useful,” Pippa says softly, uncertainly. “But it’s pretty. And it can be a sort of… a visual reference,” she says, stumbling through her reasoning with a trepidatious lilt to her voice.

“It’s beautiful,” Hecate says, interrupting her with a small, shy smile. “I love it. Thank you.”

Pippa beams then, her whole face lighting up, and Hecate’s eyes light too, lips twisting as if she’s afraid of letting herself smile brighter.

“What’s your favorite?” Pippa asks after a span, shaking off the feeling that too much time has passed watching Hecate’s awkward smile; she gestures to the book in Hecate's hands before shifting over to sit beside her, leaning against the headboard.

Hecate nibbles her lip, hesitates for just a moment, then flips carefully through the pages. After a moment, she turns the book towards Pippa, shows an illustration of towering pinkish purple fluted blooms.

“Foxglove?” Hecate nods, and Pippa reaches out to trace her fingers down the tower of blossoms. “Really?” she asks softly, a little disbelievingly.

Closing the book, Hecate nods again, sharply. “Really,” she almost whispers, nudging Pippa's shoulder with her own. “We have a test in the morning.”

“Are you ready for it?” Pippa asks, making no indication that she plans to leave and instead lying down beside her.

“Of course,” Hecate says, letting a little playful ego enter her voice. She doesn’t remark on Pippa’s obvious intentions of staying. “Are you?”

“I think so,” Pippa replies with a nod, nuzzling Hecate's shoulder when she too lies down. “You can turn the light off.”

Hecate frowns, studying Pippa thoughtfully for a moment. “You don’t want it on?”

“No,” Pippa murmurs, snuggling closer to Hecate's body and looping an arm across her waist. “I’m not scared of the dark anymore.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As we really ought to have predicted, this fic has gotten far away from me and is already almost a third longer than it was meant to be with another chapter coming.
> 
> Also: if you thought the whole thing was gonna be sweet and sappy, you were l y i n g to yourselves. Teenage angst lies ahead.
> 
> Cook is the real MVP of this chapter.  
> As ever, thanks to Matilda for her 1337 betaing skillz0rz (and to Nova for allowing me to abuse her with angsty ideas and snippets almost every damn day for weeks on end as this fic spiraled more and more out of control)
> 
> CW for mention of disordered eating (though it's mostly an education problem, and then a cutting-herself-off-from people problem rather than a cutting-herself-off-from-food problem: which is to say, I _do not_ follow the apparently common fandom-wide headcanon that Hecate doesn't eat/take care of herself; she does that quite well, thank you very much)

Miss Thornbody approaches them a few weeks later. Asks them both to participate in a broomstick display at end of summer term where the fifth years will put on a solo and trio display. Since Pippa and Hecate are the best fliers in their class, it makes sense that one or both of them represent the fourth formers; as they pair so well together, a doubles display seems only natural.

“Will you do it?” Pippa asks over supper that evening. “I know you don't like performing in front of other people but—”

“I'll do it,” Hecate says. Because it will make Pippa happy. Because it gives her an excuse to be near Pippa. Because she loves the brightness of Pippa’s presence more than almost anything she can name. Because Pippa’s smile, her happiness, is worth more than a thousand tins of biscuits or silly birthday gifts.

Pippa _beams_. Nearly launches herself out of her seat, but the table is too wide to reach across and give Hecate a hug. So she claps her hands gleefully instead, gives a little squeal of delight, and shines so bright Hecate feels her cheeks warm a little as she gazes studiously at her plate of shepherd's pie.

They spend all their free time practicing; if they aren’t doing coursework or revising, they are outside on broomsticks, learning the ins and outs of broomstick waterskiing form.

A typical broomstick display often includes at least one death-defying dive, but naturally a waterskiing display differs in that a great deal of time is spent very close to the ground—or rather, the water. It requires a steady hand and careful attention to altitude. It could be difficult to tell, from the ground, if two broomsticks didn't line up perfectly in a display taking place high above, but flying so low means not only a higher chance of collision, but that it is terribly obvious when flyers aren't in sync. And so, technical performance is more crucial than ever.

It gives them a perfectly valid excuse to leave the library and dorms behind for every patch of clear weather they can chase as winter nears.

When the next term starts, everything is choreographed but it's much too cold to practice over the lake, so they take to a large field on clear days, flying low to emulate their routine as best they can.

Early March sees Hecate flung off her broomstick just a few feet above the ground; she lands hard, right hand catching the initial impact of the fall, flips tail over teakettle, bruising her shoulder along the way, to land on her back as her broom goes zipping off without her.

Pippa sees Hecate lose her balance in her peripheral vision, but not the fall. She pulls her broom almost to dead stop, bracing with her arms as her body jars forward; arcs around, almost losing her balance in her haste to get back to Hecate. The stray broom goes flying past and she nearly tumbles to the earth herself, her feet touching the ground before she’s properly landed, and slides to her knees at Hecate's side.

“Hiccup, are you okay?” she asks, voice pitched high with concern.

Hecate makes a noncommittal sound, cradling her wrist. “I will be,” she promises, but without much fervour. She grits her teeth, presses her fingers to either side of her wrist, and her eyes burn. She tries to distract herself: “That was the worst dismount I've ever seen.”

Pippa laughs, but it’s an awkward, watery sound; she can almost hear her heartbeat in her shaking voice. She stands, reaching out a hand for Hecate's good one to gently pull her to her feet. “As if yours was better.”

Hecate grins at that, and Pippa manages a smile of her own.

“Come on,” she urges, sliding an arm around Hecate’s waist. “Let's get you to the infirmary.”

Hecate tries to hide how badly it hurts, but does not argue; lets herself be frogmarched across the field. Pippa can tell by her reaction that this is no small injury, and hates how slowly they have to walk. She wishes they could transfer—they have the skill, but not the leave—and it gives her time to think, to wonder what happened, why it happened.

She asks, as they draw near the castle entrance; Hecate simply sniffs and says she lost control.

Pippa perches on the adjacent bed while Miss Arzt takes stock of the damage. She has a broken carpal from the impact, her wrist jarred and soft tissue strained, but the healing process isn't bad.

Still, it leaves Hecate stiff and sore, not just her wrist, but her arm and shoulder aching from the fall. Pippa waits till the nurse has left before she tries to convince Hecate she should say how much she’s still hurting, that it might mean more could be done, but Hecate remains silent on the subject. When Miss Artz comes back to release Hecate, satisfied that her records are complete, Pippa keeps her lips sealed too.

Pippa kneels behind Hecate, sitting silent and rigid on the edge of the bed that night, stroking her unwound hair while Hecate cradles her wrist.

Pippa has always loved Hecate's hair, has spent many evenings before curfew brushing it, curling it, pulling it back into a loose bundle before Hecate falls asleep. In their first and second years, Hecate had kept it in a long, taut french plait that came down to the small of her back during the day; now she wears it in a severe bun that makes her look so much older than sixteen. It suits her, the way she holds herself, makes her stand out all the more from her classmates with fairy tails and loose plaits and ponytails that swish carelessly along their backs.

But she loves it down best. Likes the loose waves and the way Hecate's whole face softens when it hangs free, all the way down to her hips. Pippa could never get her own to grow that long, not without magic; the ends always seem to thin and fray when it reaches the base of her ribs. She envies it a bit, but not as much as she likes it being on her best friend’s head; she knows what Hecate’s hair means to her. (She has seen the single photograph of her mother Hecate keeps tucked away in an elementary spellbook, knows that her hair is a piece of Evangeline Hardbroom that she can carry with her wherever she goes, that cannot be lost or stolen.)

She finishes brushing Hecate's hair, plaits it back in a single loose rope. Leans onto Hecate's uninjured shoulder and sighs.

“Are you scared to try again?” Pippa asks softly, curiously.

Hecate makes a quiet noise in response, turns her aching wrist over. “No. Are you?”

“Not if you aren't.”

But Pippa sounds a little trepidatious, and Hecate turns to look at her with a small frown. “Accidents happen, Pipsqueak. Something was bound to happen eventually. Besides, everything's okay now. I'll be back on my broomstick tomorrow.”

“Maybe day after,” Pippa says, a little skeptical. “You're still sore. I think you need another day.”

“Pips—”

The door opens before she finishes the thought. They look up to find Miss Thornbody in the doorway, a look of exasperation knitting her brow.

“Miss Pentangle.” She sucks her teeth. “I should have known.”

“Sorry, Miss!” Pippa shifts around Hecate, lurches to her feet. “I was just helping Hi—Hecate with her hair. Her wrist and shoulder are still hurting her, so—”

“Yes, I’d heard about your tumble,” their form mistress interrupts, eyebrow arching as she glances between the two of them. “Best to have another body with you when you practice in the future, if possible,” she observes, and that’s the end of the subject. She clears a path through the doorway, gesturing into the hall. “Miss Pentangle?”

Pippa slips out of the room with a swiftly-bid goodnight, curls beneath her blanket, and sleeps fitfully. She wakes early, much too early, unsteady with the thought of an injured Hecate, or worse. She chases sleep for a while, never quite manages to find it. Tiptoes down the hall and into Hecate’s room, where she slips beneath the covers on the opposite side of the bed and watches Hecate sleep.

“Hiccup?” she asks, a little before dawn. Hecate grunts in response, never terribly quick or pleased to rouse herself. “Hecate?”

“Mmph?”

Pippa can’t stop herself from asking: “Did you really just… lose control? Of your broom?”

“Hmm?” Hecate replies in a hum. She nestles deeper into the pillow, yawns sleepily. Pippa has to marvel: Hecate may not be a morning person, but she’s always quick to respond when Pippa needs her; now, she seems all but determined to remain asleep. “It bucked.”

Frowning, Pippa moves a little closer. “All on its own?”

A line appears deep on Hecate’s brow as she exhales, a long, heavy breath. She does not open her eyes. “I told you I lost control, Pip.”

“You’ve been riding horses since you were three, Hecate. You got your first broomstick when you were eight!” It just doesn’t make sense, not when she thinks about it. “You fly better than any of the fifth years!”

“ _I_ know that,” Hecate replies, finally blinking her eyes open to gaze blearily at Pippa.

Pippa chews her lip, gazing plaintively back at her friend in the predawn semi-darkness. “Hecate, did… did someone tamper with your broomstick?”

Hecate sighs, closes her eyes again. “What difference would that make?”

“What dif—If somebody did that, they would need to be punished, Hiccup!” Pippa exclaims, a little louder than she intends. She manages to rein herself in, lowers her voice to a fierce whisper when she continues. “How could—why would anybody—?”

“I don’t think anybody at this school would intentionally hurt another student, Pipsqueak. At least not planned, not like that,” Hecate replies carefully, her voice stern and even.

Pippa swallows, moves a little closer. “So you really did just lose control?”

Hecate’s eyes flick open again, and she searches Pippa’s face for a long moment before replying, steady as anything. “Yes, Pipsqueak.” And then, after a span of silence, she begs: “Can I go back to sleep?”

Pippa chews her lip, moves further into Hecate’s space: up against her, pressed close, face tucked under Hecate’s chin. She nods, tangles her fingers in Hecate’s nightclothes. “Yes.”

* * *

The broomstick display is two weeks away. While the lake is still terribly cold beneath the tremulous spring sunshine, they don their bathing suits—Hecate in unassuming black, Pippa in vibrant blocks of colour—and take to the water. It's hard work, and they are on their broomsticks now more than ever, perfecting dives, coordinating the wakes left behind when they daringly trail fingers through the water (Pippa’s laughter rings through the air any time she dips too low, splashes more water than intended), bent forward over their broomsticks before rising into the air again.

They are perfecting their figure-eights, flying across the lake at speeds that leave cheeks rosey and flushed—Pippa passing behind Hecate, and Hecate behind Pippa on the next loop, lapping over and over again, watching each other in their periphery—when Pippa misjudges her arc and trajectory. They notice at the same time, but it’s already much too late.

“Pippa, you—” is all Hecate manages, trying to eke a little more speed out of her broomstick even as Pippa overcorrects, lurching upwards and sideways.

Pippa shrieks, and there’s a loud splash as she lands bodily in the water, flat on her back. For a moment, her mind goes blank, her body numb, and then she gasps in cool, spring air. She barely registers Hecate’s voice calling for Miss Swift, as if from very far away—but that can’t be true, because her hand is in Hecate’s and everything comes back into focus.

“Pippa, are you okay?” Hecate asks, her grip on Pippa’s hand almost unbearably tight.

“Fine, fine,” Pippa musters, realising belatedly that Hecate is trying to pull her bodily out of the water. “Don’t fall in, Hiccup.”

“I’m not falling,” she replies, their weight shifting as Hecate presses Pippa’s hand against the shaft of her broom, then reaches to grab Pippa beneath her other arm. Her feet dangle in the water, broom hovering low. “I’ve been riding horses since I was three, and brooms since I was eight, remember?”

Pippa laughs, and the laugh becomes a cough and a sputter as she crosses her free arm over Hecate’s lap, waist-deep in the cold, clear lake, most of her weight balanced precariously against Hecate’s legs.

“Are you okay?” Hecate repeats, and Pippa nods, adjusting her grip on Hecate’s broomstick.

“Just knocked the breath out of me, that’s all. Golly, it’s cold.”

Pippa is out of the water and dry soon enough, thanks to the path of dry land Miss Swift forges directly across the lake. She plops down on the ground by the water's edge wrapped up in a towel for warmth, leans her head on Hecate's shoulder.

“Is now a good time to mention that I don't swim very well?” she asks with a self-deprecating little laugh.

Hecate whips back, alarmed, brows knit together as she cranes her neck for a look at Pippa's face. “Pip—”

“I _can_ swim, just not _well_ ,” Pippa amends, looping her arm through Hecate's to keep her close. Hecate looks like a frightened animal, eyes wide, mouth drawn tight. Pippa doesn't like the expression, wants to soothe it away.

“Pippa, _not well_ is enough. It didn't occur to you—”

“I didn't think I'd ever fall off, Hiccup,” she says softly.

“Nevertheless, there are spells—floating charms—”

“I'll have one next time,” Pippa says, chewing her lip.

But Hecate isn't quite finished. “Not to mention, I just fell off recently. Who's to say—”

“I know, I know!” Pippa releases Hecate's arm suddenly and wraps her arms around her knees. “I'm sorry, Hiccup. I was stupid, I know.”

Pippa trails off, and a pregnant silence passes between them before Hecate sighs, lowering her head and twisting at a bit of hair that's come loose throughout their practice. “You weren't stupid,” she mutters, fidgeting, uncomfortable with the fact that she seems to have upset Pippa. “Just… foolish.”

Pippa laughs softly, leaning her cheek against Hecate's arm. “It's the same thing, Hiccup.”

“It is not.” Hecate manages to look affronted.

“No, it is,” Pippa says, forestalling Hecate's own argument. “But thanks.”

Hecate relents, drops her chin. Pippa loops an arm through Hecate’s again to show she’s not upset, and they sit in silence awhile longer.

“Do—” Hecate stops short, tries again. “Can you—I mean, _would_ you…” Hecate blushes furiously, the white flesh of her thigh turning red under rubbing, fidgeting fingers. “That is, tonight…”

“Can I sleep with you tonight?” Pippa asks, voice soft. Because Hecate does not ask these things, does not sneak down the corridor and into Pippa’s room, Pippa’s bed, when she is afraid or lonesome, and because Pippa thinks this is what Hecate wants to ask.

Hecate seems startled, pauses for a moment before answering. “If you want to,” she murmurs.

Pippa twines her arm more tightly with Hecate’s, leans into her side. “Please.”

And she does: sneaks down the hall, as she has done so many times before, a short while after Miss Thornbody passes by on her evening rounds; tiptoes across Hecate’s bedroom floor; crawls beneath the covers with her with only moon- and starlight to guide her. On most occasions, Pippa would give Hecate her space, but tonight she pulls up close against her without preamble, kisses Hecate’s face blindly in the darkness, and ducks her head beneath Hecate’s chin.

Hecate’s hand on her shoulder is cool, tentative, and then a little firmer. She presses her fingers into Pippa’s skin, holds her possessively, protectively, and yet with that same careful distance.

Pippa curls her arm around Hecate’s side and sighs, nuzzling the bare skin below her collar, clinging to her.

“I’m sorry for earlier.” Pippa’s voice is barely above a whisper, but it seems to resound in the quiet of the room.

Hecate lies there, chest rising in shallow breaths. “For what?” she asks after a pause, uncertain, voice trembling ever so slightly.

“For scaring you.”

“I wasn’t scared,” Hecate rebuffs, stiffening against her.

“For worrying you, then.” At Hecate’s silence, she continues. “I swear I’ll use protective spells from now on. By the code.”

She wants to seal the promise with a kiss—cannot explain this drive to herself, nor why, suddenly, this feels like a boundary she should not cross. She has kissed Hecate many times, after all: usually on the cheek, occasionally on some other part of her face, and always without reservations. They are never planned; they simply occur—a sudden whim, a passing desire for the intimacy of friendship made manifest in a quick and unabashed peck that frequently causes Hecate to blush just a little.

Now she sees herself pressing manifold kisses to her face, to the V of flesh laid bare beneath her lapel, repeating her promise over and over again, to be better, less reckless. To tell Hecate that it’s okay if she is concerned, worried, scared—that Pippa is glad she’s looking out for her, that she loves that, that she’s so happy to have her as a friend.

For once, her heart keeps time with Hecate’s, thunderous and fast.

She doesn’t know how long it takes her to fall asleep, but when she awakens it’s to a cuss and a muffled _thud_. As she shakes herself awake, she notices first that she is _cold_ —specifically the front of her—in Hecate’s absence (which she registers immediately thereafter), and then that she has never heard Hecate use any kind of expletive, profane or otherwise.

“Hiccup?”

“I’m fine,” comes the hushed reply; that’s when Pippa belatedly realises that Hecate is on the floor. She sits up, leans over the side of the bed.

The faint sound of hurried footsteps in the corridor reaches them before she manages to speak again, leaving her to wonder how on _earth_ their form mistresses always seem to have ears like bats and eyes like hawks. She would like very much to know their secrets.

“ _Hide,_ ” Hecate hisses, bringing Pippa back to herself.

There’s nothing to do but switch places.

“ _Miss Hardbroom_ ,” Miss Thornbody hisses from the doorway moments later, the lantern in her hand illuminating Hecate’s pale skin, giving her the semblance of a phantom. “Whatever is the matter?”

Hecate shields her eyes from the light, pulls her feet into the bed. “Sorry, Miss,” she murmurs demurely, rubbing sleep from her eyes. “I… I was just dreaming,” she explains, cheeks hot as she hangs her head. “I, erm, fell out of the bed.”

Miss Thornbody sighs, lowering her light as she examines Hecate from the doorway; Pippa can just see her feet from her position on the floor at the far side of the bed.

“Are you alright, dear?” Softer, more gentle.

“I’m fine, Miss,” Hecate replies quickly, wringing her hands. “I’d like to go back to sleep, though.”

Their form mistress snorts quietly at the pronouncement, the most subtle of quiet laughs. “As would I,” she replies, smiling vaguely. “If you need anything, I _am_ just down the hall.”

Hecate swallows, nods. Uses the same tone she always uses with their teachers: direct, level, respectful. “Yes, Miss. Thank you.”

As soon as the door closes, Hecate flops onto her back, looking straight up at the ceiling.

Pippa manages to contain her relieved laughter for several seconds before starting to giggle softly, breathily, muffling the sound behind her hand.

“That was close,” she says, sotto voce.

Hecate’s head flops towards her, neck craning to see her where she continues to lie on her back on the floor. “You should go,” she says quietly, coolly.

Pippa’s laughter subsides. She pushes herself up to her elbow, glances at Hecate’s face in the darkness, can just make out the thin line of her lips, the carefully-schooled frown. “But—”

“Pippa.”

“She’s not coming back, Hiccup,” Pippa insists, clambering to her knees and leaning her elbows on the edge of the bed. “What’s wrong?”

A pang of emotion that she can’t quite identify settles in her chest when, suddenly, Hecate curls her knees up and rolls to face the opposite direction. Hecate has always carefully guarded her own personal spaces, her time to herself, but there have been few times Pippa actually felt like an intruder. She feels the sense of imposition very acutely now, and it is as foreign a feeling as she has ever felt. People like Pippa, and she gets along with almost everyone, even when she does not like them as much; she has won the favor of her peers and teachers and, most profoundly, of Hecate, who Pippa privately thinks doesn’t like much of anyone at school, not even their teachers, except out of academic respect. But Pippa loves Hecate, cares more for her than any of their other peers, anyone she’s ever met outside of her own family, and she knows Hecate is fond of her too.

“Hiccup, if it’s about earlier, at the lake…”

“Just go back to bed, Pippa.”

Pippa bites her lip and tries very hard not to let the dismissal bother her. “Okay,” she says softly, standing. “Fine. I’m going.” Halfway to the door, she turns back. Parts her lips to speak, but doesn’t know what to say, what to ask, so she pauses again. Then, in the same low voice, she adds: “Sleep well, Hiccup.”

* * *

Pippa keeps her word, practices with protective spells applied in Hecate's presence just to make sure. If it were anyone else, Pippa would laugh at their concern, but Hecate is not the sort to fret openly, at least not when academics aren't involved. Pippa wants to assure her, to let her know that her word is sure, that she won't let Hecate down. She even manages to avoid making a show of it after the first time, not wanting this thing to seem like a game.

It isn't a game. Of course it isn't. Hecate is involved, and Hecate is her best friend. Her dearest friend. Her Hecate, who is worried for her. The least Pippa can do is assuage that worry.

But it become increasingly difficult not to worry about Hecate herself when, for two weeks, she so cultivates the art of tardiness that Pippa begins to think she's been affected by a mild, but lingering, personality change potion. Being late to meals is not unusual, of course; she typically arrives as soon as she finishes copying a paragraph for revisions, or gets through the current section of her text book, but she always arrives in plenty of time to eat. She is never late to class though, and on three separate occasions she steals into the back of class just as roll call ends and sits by herself for the duration. After that, Pippa slips to the back of the room when she sees Hecate is late, steals a seat beside her and gives her concerned looks which she's sure Hecate stubbornly ignores off and on throughout class.

“What's wrong with you, Hiccup?” Pippa hisses when she finds her in the library a week before the broomstick display, alone in a corner that isn't _their_ spot.

“Nothing. I'm busy, that's all.”

“What could you be so busy with that you're late to at least one class almost every day for a week?” Pippa asks, incensed.

Hecate thins her lips, sounds a quiet _tss_ from behind her teeth. “Keep your voice down; you'll get us in trouble.”

“You're getting _yourself_ in trouble already, Hecate! Do you know how cross Miss Broomsedge was when you were late to her _test_? I think she only let you take it at all because you've never, ever been late to her class before and she thought something was really wrong!”

“I wasn't feeling well.”

“But you didn't go see Miss Arzt, did you?”

Hecate scowls, flips the page of her book a bit more roughly than she intends. “Did you come here to lecture me or to study, Pippa? How would you know whether I went to see her or not anyway?”

“Because when I couldn't find you before supper I went to the infirmary to see if you were there, and she said she hadn't seen you all day! I was worried about you, Hiccup!”

“Then…” Hecate stops, frowns all the more deeply, and the furrow of her brow makes her look much older than sixteen. “Then stop worrying.”

What a hypocritical notion, Pippa thinks, returning Hecate's frown with one of her own. “But that's what friends _do_ , Hecate, like you worrying about me using safety charms for the display!” For a moment, Hecate looks like she is going to say something, but Pippa interrupts her. “We _are_ friends.”

The last words come out much more like a question than Pippa means them to.

The silence between them is deafening, but what’s worse is Hecate’s expression; she looks so torn, so hurt and upset, Pippa just stares at her for a long moment. Just stares, doesn’t say a word. Stares and thinks, if somebody has done something to make Hecate think they aren’t friends, if something has happened…

But how could it have? Surely Hecate knows not to believe anything the other girls say, and they mostly stopped wasting their time trying to get a rise out of her a long time ago anyway. She’s too good for them, doesn’t give them the satisfaction of much more than a clipped response most of the time, if she responds to them at all.

“You're my best friend, Hecate,” Pippa says at last, quietly, making it a fresh promise, a vow that she’s not going anywhere.

Hecate finally schools her expression into a placid mask, lips thin as she glances up at Pippa through her lashes. “I know,” she whispers. Manages the vaguest twist of a smile. “You're mine, too.”

* * *

Hecate does not come to the broomstick display. Pippa waits and waits and lets the order of events change and still Hecate does not come.

When it’s all over, when they are released back to their free day, she goes straight to Hecate’s room, barges in. Finds the too-small lump that is Hecate curled tight underneath her blankets and rushes to her bed.

“Hiccup? Are you okay?” She gets silence in reply, pulls back the blankets to reveal a tousled curtain of hair and the edge of a frown. “Hiccup?”

“Leave me alone,” Hecate replies sullenly, voice muffled.

Pippa squeezes her shoulder. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Pippa; leave me alone,” Hecate repeats, voice a little louder, a little more forceful.

Pippa balks.

Hecate has asked to be left alone many times; informed Pippa quietly, politely, that she would like some time alone, and Pippa has always given her her space. She understands that it is something Hecate needs, even if she doesn’t wholly understand _why_.

But this is not a request; it’s a demand, and it strikes hard and fast against her heart, injuring and raising an alarum in its wake.

Pippa swallows, fights to make her mouth work. “B—but, Hecate…” At Hecate’s continued silence, she swallows again, tries again, tries harder. “Hecate? If you’re okay why didn’t you… why didn’t you come? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. I didn’t want to come.”

“You didn’t—” Pippa reins herself in short, tries to process this notion.

“I didn’t want to come,” Hecate says again, cool and flat, but loud enough to be clear even from her position with her nose very nearly touching her knees. “So I didn’t.”

“But… But Hiccup, you wanted to six months ago; you wanted to _yesterday_ , why—why today, how could you—I don’t understand! What’s _wrong_ , Hecate? Why won’t you tell me what’s the matter?”

Pippa clenches her fingers against Hecate’s arm, voice too high, bordering on hysterics, and Hecate actually _elbows_ her: kicks her arm back and shoves Pippa’s hand away.

“I _told_ you: nothing’s _wrong_ ; I just didn’t want to anymore! So leave me alone!”

Pippa doesn’t get to speak again—makes a noise of protestation as Hecate buries her face in a pillow, repeating those last words like a mantra.

Or like an incantation.

Pippa can smell the magic on her, feel it radiating off of her: the static in the air, the sudden cold rush that raises gooseflesh up and down her arms, the deafening volume of Hecate’s voice despite that her mouth is covered— _leave me alone, leave me alone, leavemealoneleaveme_ —

She materialises out of thin air in her own room, on the edge of her own bed.

The tears come without warning and without reprieve.

Hecate avoids her, ignores her, actively makes a point of not making amends: and so, Pippa takes off her bracelet—Hecate’s bracelet, and she keeps her silence.

* * *

Pippa’s birthday arrives soon after, and the wound is still fresh enough, Hecate’s silence still so _loud_ , she does not even knock on Hecate’s door come evening, doesn’t bother even trying to show her her gifts from home, to share the pile of semi-sweet biscuits included just for Hecate.

She’s so angry, she just throws them away; it’s what she deserves, after all: a bin full of paper waste and, later, a place alongside kitchen refuse and other such undesirable _garbage_. If their friendship, if nearly four years side by side can be shunted aside so easily, the denial of this small gift is the smallest fraction of what she deserves.

Later, she thinks she should have given them to someone else. Loudly, with fanfare, while Hecate was in the room. _These biscuits were for Hecate, but she’s a_ snob _and thinks she’s better than everyone and doesn’t keep her promises and—_

Honestly, Pippa can’t even keep up a theoretical insult for long. She waxes and wanes in throes of bitterness and hurt and anger, and the ache in her heart grows and grows until she can’t stand it anymore. The next evening she flings Hecate’s bracelet into the bin by her desk, falls into bed with the lights on, and cries and cries until she’s tired of crying, beyond tired of crying, and cries more.

She has calmed a little, but not much, when Miss Thornbody opens the door awhile past curfew; Pippa can sense the ready sigh, the gentle, waiting rebuke as soon as she hears the quiet creak of the hinges, the careful footstep on stonework. But a sigh never comes, and nor does the rebuke. There is no _’Again, Miss Pentangle?’_ , no understanding, if world-weary, gust of breath. Only a soft “ _Oh dear_ ,” that serves no other purpose than to renew Pippa’s whimpering, embarrassed and hurt and utterly beyond her own control.

“Alright, love. It’s alright,” she murmurs, settling onto the edge of the bed and resting a hand on Pippa’s arm. “What’s happened?”

It’s the first real kindness Pippa has heard in weeks. She latches onto it, chokes back a fresh sob and scuds tears from her cheeks.

“It’s nothing, just. Nothing happened, but I,” she begins haltingly, squeezing her eyes shut and trying again; this time, it comes rushing out of her like a sieve, quick and overflowing on a shaky, breathless voice. “Hecate doesn’t want to be friends anymore, and I don’t know what I’ve done to upset her, or if I’ve done something to upset her at all, or if maybe it’s something somebody else did or said, because she won’t talk to me at all, Miss, she won’t look at me or talk to me or sit with me in class and I don’t know. I don’t know, I don’t know, Idon’tknow! We were best friends one day and then the next she didn’t want anything to do with me and, and the broomstick display—one day everything was fine, and the next, she—and I just don’t understand, I don’t… I don’t understand.”

She finishes breathlessly, tries to fill her lungs but they rebel, heaving out another loud sob instead. And then, acting without thought, without consideration, she pushes herself upright, surges into Miss Thornbody’s arms, buries her face in the form mistress’ neck and _howls_ , tears and voice alike nearly spent, though the pain inside her just grows and grows.

“Okay. Okay, it’s okay.” Miss Thornbody murmurs, coaxes, shushes, susurrant nothings that get lost in Pippa’s cries, in the crown of unkempt hair around her head.

Pippa clings and clings, and doesn’t let go, not until the wracking sobs finally leave her, until her whole body is stiff and aching with the effort, until the physical pain of it all is almost, _almost_ enough to match the pain in her heart.

“Sorry,” she whispers when she finally has some semblance of control over herself. “I’m sorry, Miss. I’m sorry.”

“That’s alright, dear. It’s alright,” Miss Thornbody murmurs, moving up the bed just a little as Pippa lies down again, very nearly collapsing into the pillows with exhaustion, a hand against her nose to contain her sniffles. Miss Thornbody manifests a handkerchief, offers it to her. Lays a hand on her arm and squeezes. A moment of silence passes; Miss Thornbody brushes her thumb gently across Pippa’s shoulder.

Pippa’s never really thought of her form mistress, the school’s deputy head, as motherly, but she supposes she’s not really supposed to. She’s grateful for it now though. Wipes her eyes and cleans her nose and takes a good, long breath, shaky as it may be.

“Do you need to mirror home?” Miss Thornbody asks, and Pippa starts at the question, blinking up at her in confusion.

“But it’s… it’s past curfew.”

Miss Thornbody smiles a ghost of a smile, squeezes her arm again. “Our secret.”

Pippa manages to smile back. Feels better just having the option, but only a little. She considers the offer, then shakes her head slowly. “No, thank you. Um… it’s almost the break anyway, and… No, thank you.”

“You’re sure?”

Nodding, Pippa swallows hard against the dry lump in her throat. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Alright. Try to get some rest.”

* * *

Pippa fishes the bracelet out of the bin the next day. She doesn’t know why, but she does. Fishes it out and puts it in a little keepsake box with a few treasures from home. Puts on a brave face, goes to class. Does well on her exams, but thinks she could have done better. Tries not to wonder what sort of grades Hecate makes, how she’s faring without Pippa as a study and coursework partner, cauldron partner, friend. Tries not to think about the fact that Hecate has not, to her knowledge, spoken to a single person unless she absolutely had to over the past several weeks.

The break begins and ends and she barely thinks to enjoy warm green grass and days of freedom in between. She does write a letter: frames an apology, asks for absolution, begs to be made to understand, but never sends it. Wants to see Hecate, to speak to her face to face if Hecate will only give her a chance.

If anything, at the start of their fifth year, Hecate is colder, more resolved. On the first day of class, she sweeps in with an air of defiance, chin high, body rigid. Settles into a seat without a word.

Magic seems to seep out of Hecate; it always has. She was always a powerful young witch with a magnificent aptitude for the Craft. And she is a model of self-control, a picture of discipline in all things—but she has had a few mishaps over the years.

Early on in the term—on her birthday, in fact—the facade of control cracks a little, leaves disaster in its wake. Her cauldron inexplicably boils over with a horrific, viscous sludge in double potions, filling the air with a ghastly purple steam that forces the class to evacuate into the hallway as their teacher vanishes the smoke and does her best to head off the damage.

Three cauldrons are utterly ruined in the display, but beyond Hecate's singed shirtcuff and Miss Broomsedge’s utterly wild hair, no physical harm comes to anyone.

Miss Broomsedge is, of course, livid.

“Miss Hardbroom, of all the utterly… were you looking at what you put in your cauldron, girl?” she demands. “You are a fifth year, and are expected to exercise care in handling yourself around ingredients and spells!”

Hecate stands, frozen and silent, expression schooled into an inscrutable mask as she accepts the berating. Somehow, despite being two inches taller than the teacher, she manages to look very, very small.

Miss Broomsedge watches her for a moment, then spits: “Miss Hardbroom!? Have you heard a word, girl?”

Hecate’s mouth flops uselessly open and closed again before she tilts her chin up and tries again. “I’m sorry, Miss. I…” Caught between the need to state facts as they are and fear of seeming disrespectful, she trails off, clenches her fists, fingernails biting unrelentingly into her palms. Gathers herself, tries again. “I’m certain another half-gram of dried jellyfish tentacle would almost double the efficacy of—”

“And you should also be _certain_ ,” Miss Broomsedge scolds, interrupting her (Hecate flinches, draws her lips into a tight line), “that jellyfish tentacle is an incredibly volatile ingredient, especially mixed with _crow saliva_!”

For a moment, Hecate looks like she is going to accept the criticism in silence. Then she parts her lips again, splaying her fingers nervously at her sides before clenching them closed again. “Yes, Miss, but another half of a gram, tempered by the allium blossoms should only have strengthened the protective properties of the potion.”

“Hecate Hardbroom, you are a brilliant witch and have heretofore exhibited phenomenal skill in this subject,” the teacher says in a low voice—not a compliment, merely an observation, “but do _not_ presume yourself to be a master of the Craft.”

Half the class looks on from the doorway as Miss Broomsedge waits a moment, as the rebuke settles in. As Hecate stands dumbly, head low, knuckles of her curled fists going white. As magic fizzes up around her, blurring her edges as though she's on the brink of a half-cast transference spell.

Like she’s going to fade out of existence.

“Miss Hardbroom!”

Hecate's face snaps up and she stands there, corporeal and erect, biting her lip as she meets Miss Broomsedge's gaze. “Miss.”

“You will finish cleaning this classroom, and you will keep your magic _in check_ as you do. With that lack of control, it’s no wonder you nearly destroyed the room,” she adds.

“Yes, miss.”

Pippa doubts that anyone else, Miss Broomsedge included, notices the way Hecate's hands tremble as the teacher turns her back and moves for the door. The group of girls parts to make way.

“On your way, girls,” she orders with a flap of her hands. “Mind your own. I suggest you use this time for revisions.”

Most of the group disperse as ordered, but Emma flops against the doorframe and crosses her arms. “Ugh. Why can't she just follow directions like everybody else?” she mutters with a scowl, peering into the classroom.

Jo follows Emma’s lead, peering in with a grin. “Look at her; I think she's gonna cry.”

Pippa feels a spark of anger flare up inside of her, shoots a glare at the other girls. “Why do you have to be so mean to her?” she demands. “What's she ever done to you, except be smarter and get better marks?”

Emma sighs dramatically in response, rolling her eyes. “She's a snob, Pippa. Thinks she's better than everybody else just because she's older and smarter and comes from such an old witching line.”

“How do you even know that?” Pippa asks, voice rising in pitch. “You've been mean to her since Selection Day—you never even gave her a chance! Maybe she only—”

But Jo cuts her off with a sudden, scoffing laugh. “She _ditched_ you, Pippa; why are you trying to defend her?” Pippa parts her mouth to speak, but Jo barrels on. “Everybody knows you should have dumped her a long time ago. Serves you right for not knowing better.”

“Anyway, you've got us. Forget about her.”

Pippa relents. Hates herself for it. Watches Hecate square her shoulders for the task at hand before following the other girls down the hall.

Hecate doesn't come to dinner. It’s not like Pippa is _looking_ for her, not really, but Pippa does know that she never arrives.

In their first year at school, Hecate had eaten, but often not enough. The other girls jeered, made inane jokes about Hecate eating Cook out of the kitchen when she ate her fill, and Hecate had been fool enough to listen, despite that she always seemed to get hungry between meals. And Pippa had pushed treats from home into her hands and snuck nuts and fruit and hand pies from the kitchen for her, until she’d been caught absconding with rather a large portion of almonds once and been forced to blushingly explain that Hecate simply _needed_ more.

After that, she didn’t sneak food from the kitchen: Cook always made sure there were a few savory, nutritious treats available— _the sort of thing a growing girl needs_ , she’d said conspiratorially as she pressed them into Pippa’s hands and sent her on her way.

Hecate had come too, after that—had even developed a distant sort of affection for Cook. They had taken a cursory nutrition class with Miss Arzt, of course—learned the importance of a balanced diet, the vices and virtues of carbohydrates and proteins and various vitamins and minerals—but it was Cook who looked at Hecate blandly and declared: “You burn through it all faster than those other girls do, child; there’s nothing else to it. Everybody—every _body_ —” she’d brandished her rolling pin for emphasis “—is different. Don’t you let anybody keep you from taking care of yourself.”

Hecate had never gone hungry after that, yet Pippa finds herself worriedly tracing the familiar path down to the kitchens, where she meets Cook setting things out for breakfast preparations. They exchange pleasantries as Pippa moves to lean against the bench, watching Cook work for a moment.

“Cookie, have you—have you seen Hecate?” she asks quietly, haltingly.

She’s met with half a smile. “Not since last term.”

“Not—” Pippa cuts herself off, frowning deeply. “Term started weeks ago. You haven’t seen her at all?”

“Not hide nor hair,” Cook confirms. “Suppose she’s bringing snacks from home? You can tell her if she didn’t like my food, all she had to do was say so.”

Pippa smiles wanly at the teasing. “We’re not really talking.”

“I’m sorry, love.”

Pippa manages a noncommittal shrug, taps her fingers against well-worn wood. “Could I—could I have something for her? I’m… worried. She missed supper.”

“Just roasted up some pumpkin seeds,” Cook offers in reply, moving to fetch them. “And we’ve a fresh load of fruit, if you want to have a look.”

“Maybe an orange?”

“You know where they are. Here.” Cook presses a bag of seeds into Pippa’s hands with a gentle smile, places a hand on Pippa’s head. She’s the only person at the school, staff or student, with any significant height over Hecate: dwarfs Pippa rather easily, but makes her feel safe rather than small.

Pippa wraps an arm around Cook’s waist for a brief hug, manages a brighter smile as she pulls away. “Thanks, Cookie.”

“Any time. Send that girl back down if you can, Pip. Pumpkin seeds and an orange won’t tide her over long.”

Pippa schools her emotions on her way through the halls, up to Hecate’s room. She wonders what she’ll do if Hecate isn’t there. Borrow some paper from her desk, she supposes, write a quick letter and leave the food for her.

It’s not a concern in the end, because when she pushes Hecate’s door open after two quiet knocks, she finds Hecate cross-legged in bed with a pile of books and papers spread around her, glaring at the door before Pippa ever peeks her head through it. As soon as she sees that it’s Pippa, she averts her gaze, but Pippa does not miss the hard scowl.

Pippa stands there for a moment, reeling from the momentary glare, then plucks up her courage and walks across the room, to Hecate’s side table. “You weren’t at supper.”

“I wasn’t hungry,” Hecate mutters, resolutely turning a page of her notebook.

“You’re lying, Hecate Hardbroom.”

“And you know that how?”

“Because you’re always hungry,” Pippa shoots back.

She wishes, after she’s said it, that she managed to make the words sound more fond, less accusatory. Wonders if maybe that would have healed everything, like in a film. A blunt, if perhaps exaggerated, remark said out of love and concern that leaves both of them laughing, making up, wondering why the rift formed between them in the first place…

But Hecate only closes in on herself, runs a finger along a line of precise cursive script in her notes.

“Hiccup…”

“I wish you would quit calling me that.”

“Fine, _Hecate_ ,” Pippa replies, hurt more than she could ever have imagined by Hecate’s disinterested tone and the request alike. She takes a breath, starts again as she sits stiffly, uninvited, on the edge of Hecate’s bed. “Cookie said if you don’t come down, she’s going to have Miss Arzt—”

“Now you’re lying.”

Pippa bites her lip, hard. But she plows on. Because she is hurt and sad, but she cares. She tries her best not to make it about her, not to let her hurt show. “You’re right. But. I don’t… I don’t know what happened. I don’t care. I mean—I care, but. But I don’t—I don’t want…” She pauses, heaves a frustrated sigh. “Whatever happened, you can’t stop taking care of yourself,” she says quietly, pressing her palms together. “Cook said she hasn’t seen you all year, and—”

“I don’t know why you always have to meddle in other people's’ business, Pippa Pentangle.”

The noise of frustration escapes before Pippa can stop it, and she shoots back upright again, scowling and dark as a stormcloud. “Because I care about you, you stupid witch! And if you don't care about me anymore—even if—well anyway, you have to take care of yourself, regardless of—of anything. Nothing’s worth hurting yourself, Hecate.” Pippa huffs out the last and turns away, unwilling to let Hecate see the tears that prick in her eyes, how hard it is for her to keep from crying. _It’s not about you_ , she tells herself again, scudding dampness from her eye with a quick sweep of her palm as she arrives at the door.

Her hand is on the doorknob when she pauses, swallowing hard. “You… you do know that, right?” she asks, turning to gaze uncertainly at Hecate where she sits on the bed, chin down.

She’s almost all the way out the door when Hecate’s voice reaches her, small and quiet. “Thank you.”

Pippa turns back; Hecate still isn’t looking at her, but her lips part as she stares fixedly down at her bed.

“Did…” Hecate pauses, tries again. “Cook. Did she say if it was alright if… if I came down tonight?”

Pippa swallows; she isn’t going to stand here and snivel, not when she needs Hecate to be okay first and foremost. “Yes. Yes, any time.”

“She said that?”

“I wouldn’t lie about that, Hecate.”

There’s nothing more to say after that. Before Pippa closes the door behind her, she glimpses Hecate gathering her study materials carefully into a pile; before she reaches the end of the corridor, a door behind her opens and closes softly, but she does not turn around.

* * *

She is content to give Hecate her space.

Content isn’t really the word for it, but there’s not much else to say for it. She has always allowed Hecate her boundaries, and she allows for them now, constantly hoping that at some point Hecate will tell her what’s _wrong_. There’s something there, Pippa knows; either she has done something that inadvertently hurt Hecate, or some outside intervention has poisoned Hecate’s opinion of her.

Either way, Hecate has never been easily forced into anything; she has always been strong-willed, sometimes to a fault, and Pippa knows that demanding to know the reason for all of this will do nothing.

But it’s been months; the winter break is upon them, and Pippa has not slept in three days for the nightmares that cling to her every time she closes her eyes.

They haven’t been this bad since she was small, and she can’t exactly curl up between her mother and father in bed in the middle of term. So she goes to Hecate’s room. Knocks softly, pushes the door open. Leans against it as she calls out in a tentative whisper.

“Hiccup?” There’s a muffled grunt from the bed, but nothing more, so Pippa tries again. “Hecate, I—I’m afraid.”

Pippa sighs as Hecate rolls towards her, groaning her awakening. She’s of half a mind to turn the lights on and curl up underneath the blankets with Hecate now and ask for forgiveness later, but she resolutely quashes that thought down. As far as she can tell, Hecate doesn’t even want to speak to her anymore; she is only here clinging to the vain hope that whatever walls her Hecate, _her Hiccup_ has built up around herself can be brought down in the face of Pippa’s need.

When silence settles in the room again, Pippa clears her throat. “Hecate?”

This time, Hecate awakens fully, makes a little _hm_ sound as she blinks her eyes open. When she registers her surroundings, Hecate exhales heavily through her nose. “What are you doing here?”

Pippa balls up her fists, stretches her fingers out again. Favours her lip. “I… I can’t sleep,” she confesses nervously, daring to hope as she looks up at Hecate through her lashes. “I don’t want to be alone; can—can I sleep with you?”

“You don’t have to be alone, Pippa,” Hecate replies flatly. “You have other friends”

Pippa’s breath hitches. “Not like you,” she admits, and she swears Hecate’s eyes glisten. “Do you know what other girls our age do when you tell them you’re afraid of the dark?” she mumbles, steeling herself. “They laugh at you, Hiccup. They—”

She stops at the noise Hecate makes; her frustration is obvious—her voice, when she speaks, is sharp and venomous. “I told you not to call me that.”

For the briefest moment, the words and Hecate’s tone settle between them, and then a sob rises in Pippa’s throat—one she tries very valiantly to choke back down.

She no longer knows how to avoid blaming Hecate.

“What’s _wrong_ with you?” she demands around the tightness in her throat. “Why are you being so awful?”

“Because we’re _not. Friends,_ Pippa,” Hecate replies with the same venom, turning over in the bed and pulling the blanket up to her chin. “Don’t you get it, you silly witch? We can’t be friends.”

Momentarily stunned, Pippa stands, staring blankly at the bed, at the blanket covering Hecate’s curled back. Finally, tremulously, she asks: “Why?”

Silence.

“Why, Hiccup?” she repeats. “Tell me why!”

“ _I told you not to call me that!_ ”

Pippa gapes, swallows hard, feels tears prick at her eyes.

“I hate you,” she mumbles without thinking, words slipping out in the heat of the moment. It’s both truth and lie. She tastes the words, holds them in her mouth, and at Hecate’s continued silence she groans loudly into the stillness of the room, rendered inarticulate by the storm of emotions raging inside of her. Hurt, anger, confusion…

She wants to throw something.

“I hate you!” she repeats, louder, a desperate outcry. “I hate you, _Ihateyou!_ ” The tears sting her eyes as she grasps the doorknob, sobbing suddenly.

But she cannot stand the idea of crying in front of Hecate now, not even if Hecate seems hellbent on ignoring her. So she wrenches the door open, slams it behind her. Flees down the hallway and doesn’t look back.

(She doesn’t see Hecate curl in on herself as soon as the door slams behind her, doesn’t hear the sudden sob. Never knows that her outburst—loud and untrue, contrived out of anger—is met with a muffled, anguished _I love you_. Never knows that the last words Hecate spoke to her for almost 30 years were a softly stammered, broken: _I’m sorry, Pipsqueak, I’m so sorry_.)


End file.
